Painting Progress
Painting has become my main creative outlet during the lockdowns. Time spent painting has lead to the completion of a book of painted Pallets in acrylic & a book of rooftop studies in watercolour. These practice projects have slowly lead to larger paintings & other small projects which all serve to test my ability in this area. During this time I realised the texture of acrylic could be manipulated so I decided to use this as one of the main ways to add detail into my work, this was mostly effective in the Pallet paintings but has leaked into the rest of the work.
This work is very much based on where I live. Due to being home so much over the year & walking around to learn about the place, visual information has filtered into recent work. Initially with the roof top paintings I became interested in exploring the town from the outside. Observing the roof tops over the hedges from the fields around the edges of the growing estate. This then developed into a collaborative project with a friend. We decided on 4 local walks, along country lanes, through fields, along footpaths & roads. We are each documenting 2 walks on either side of a concertina book. At this point the project is just over half way complete. I have begun to notice all of the details on the margins of this still expanding town. Farms & ancient hedge rows to one side & modern warehouses & an airport on the other. The once remote dwellings & farms are now being encroached by the new buildings. Evidence of their construction, the infrastructure needed to support them & people who live in them is now unavoidable in the once quiet countryside. The sound of distant heavy plant machinery now fills the spaces, over powering the sound of birdsong on the wind. Debris blown from the construction site is stuck in the old oak trees & hedges, left blowing in the wind on the perimeter of muddy fields. Mountains of earth is gathered in places near roads along side are scattered chunks of tarmac. One piece is cut so perfectly into a triangle 2 inches thick & 7 inches on its longest side. The edges are smooth & expose the aggregate inside. Stones are cut through leaving a speckled edge showing the colours of their insides. It is a perfectly cut piece of debris.
This triangle of stones & tarmac in some ways captures the identity of the town & the project. It’s shape resembling the new rooftops that poke into the horizon. It’s substance made of the roads that lead here & its immaculate shape feeling like new homes yet to be lived in.
The ancient rock colours show the pallet of the town in shimmery bronze, rusty orange, shades of slate & tarmac black. A lepidolite spectrum of purples, roses, silver & grey have a mica like glint in the light. This small piece of the town has become an object telling the story of expansion, material, process & form.
I’ll keep hold of it so that one day I may show you.
